(writeup posting shortly)

Travel today started mercifully at 7am instead of the pre 6am wakeup calls we'd been having. The plan today was to take the Hayabusa and Hikari trains from Sendai down to Kyoto, explore a bit of Kyoto including a trip on the Sagano Romantic train, and then end up in Osaka which would be our base for the next two days.

After checking out we stopped to see one more pokemon lid in the region - one of few which was located in such a metropolitan location - and made our way over to the station for our 7:53 am train to Tokyo.


Proper Hayabusa Picture!




Still the same comfy seats!

Travel down to Tokyo and Kyoto was pretty uneventful. The Wi-Fi was a bit unreliable, in part due to the large number of tunnels as I mentioned in the last report. I didn't think there would be as many down here but that wasn't the case. Once we arrived in Kyoto, we struggled to find luggage storage for our bags, but eventually found one in a lower level of the train station. Our plan was to take a combination of local Osaka Trains/Subway around the area, eventually ending up in the Northwest corner of the city to ride the Sagano Romantic Train. I had booked our ticket in advance on the JR website page, so we had a set time to be on the train later in the afternoon. We started by taking the subway north to Karasuma Oike and connecting east to Higashiyama station. From here we walked north to Okazaki Park for our first pokemon lid in this region. The walk to the shrine was along a little (river?), which was very calming.



Walking around Kyoto - it's kind of a river?



Near our first stop of the day, just outside Heian-jingu Shrine

From Okazaki Park, it was another 20-30 minute walk south to Maruyama Park


Chion-In temple, near our second pokemon lid of the afternoon


From here we had to make up a little bit of time - mainly lost due to taking over a half hour to find a luggage locker - so we walked over to the Kyoto-Kawaramachi Hankyu Train station to take another train to the western part of Kyoto, Katsura Station, where we connected to another train northwestern to one of the terminus stations, Arashiyamna. This train station is near the popular bamboo forest, but it was also near a pokemon lid that was very high on my list, and more importantly it was near where we would be boarding the Romantic Train.

Right outside the station we decided to get some snacks, this time at a Ministop. I call this out specifically because I grabbed some popcorn chicken bites from here and this was, by far, the tastiest snack I had in my entire trip in Japan. Hot, and a little crunchy, it was some of the best chicken I've ever had. It was truly in a league of it's own for convenience store food and it was probably better than most fast food restaurants.


Looks not the best, definitely tasted the best

Northwest Kyoto is a very beautiful part of the city, and after enjoying the chicken, we walked along the Nakanoshima Bridge to Arashiyama Park, which is a tiny island. Emily orderd some very delicious Strawberry Mochi that I can't find pictures for at the moment, but they were very tasty.



Crossing the Nakanoshima Bridge

We we're starting to get very short on time, which was frustrating because the Pokémon lid in the area was one of the ones that I had marked as "must-see". We did a loop around a second time and finally found the Ho-Oh lid:



Ho-oh! This pokemon actually made a cameo in the very first episode but wasn't part of the original 151. It's a legendary Pokemon in the series so it carries some serious weight!

We then walked over the Togetsukyo Bridge towards the Tenryu-Ji temple, which was a very crowded area filled with restaurants and shops.


Near the Tenryu-Ji Temple, this was outside a local shop

We eventually turned into the bamboo forest walkway, which was cool, but not something that I'd say in hindsight is "must-see". It did provide a bit of shade though.

Tourist Bamboo Forest Picture

We arrived at our train station, Torokko Arashiyama Station, with about 5 minutes to spare. This is actually the second stop on the train route (going west), but starting here made much more sense and is actually just as popular a starting/stopping point compared to the eastern terminus Saga-Arashiyama, which is only 2-3 minutes via train away.


Waiting for the Sagano Romantic Train! But it arrives from the other side.

The Sagano Romantic train is known for following a path along the Katsura river. There is a JR train that has a similar route, but it's nowhere near as scenic and also goes through a couple tunnels. This is also operated by a diesel locomotive.




Sagano Romantic Train!

We paid around $10 I think for advance reservations, and only did so because we wanted to confirm seats in the last car - the open train car. While the first four cars are traditional in the sense they have windows (that can be opened), the last train is all open.


Car #5, the open air train Car

While I was able to make reservations ahead of time (this train is reservation only), I was not able to pick seats. Ideally I would have had forward facing seats and not rear-facing seats, but it was still enjoyable. Our seats were on the right (north) side, which meant the first 20-25% of the ride had no views except cliffs, while the remaining portion had better views.




There is not time to get on and off at the stations to do anything other then board/deboard, which nobody did in between. We did see the Tanooki at several stops though:


Tanooki! The sign says (according to google translate) they are supposed to bring us good luck.




The ride in total lasted around 20 minutes. It was...alright. Not a waste of time, but it's also not something I would say you have to see either. The seats are pretty small and cramped, the views are either good or non-existent at any given time depending on what side you're sitting on. The train ends at Torokko Kameoka Station. We stayed around to watch people board the return and wave goodbye, and then followed signs and a short walking path to nearby Umahori station. You can see in the below picture there are signs pointing to the walking path that leads to Umahori station:


Leaving the Torokko Kamekoka train station

We took a JR train back to Umekoji-Kyotonishi station, one stop short of Kyoto Station - to get one more pokemon lid and then traveled back to grab our bags, and make our way back to our hotel down in Osaka. We eventually got to our hotel - the Moxy Shin-Umeda - after connecting to one more train from Shin-Osaka and Osaka station, getting off at Fukushima. Osaka's train station also looks really cool at night:


Osaka Station at Night

I'm not a marriott guy, but I love the vibe and atmosphere of both the Moxy and Aloft Hotels - both of which were available in the area. I booked a discounted rate of I think $125 after taxes per night at this hotel. It was definitely on the smaller side, but it was really just a place to sleep.


Moxy Shin-Umeda Room

As we were exiting the Osaka train station, I noticed a nearby Shake Shack, which sounded really good at the time. While we were refreshing at our hotel, I tried to google it just to check the hours and everything, and instead of finding the steak shack, got a result for Craft Burger Co., in part because of a comment/review that said something along the lines of "when people tell me they want to go to Steak Shack, I tell them to go here". I checked the menu online and agreed it sounded like a great place to go, also because they had peanut butter shakes mentioned. We took a couple trains back to get to here, and I can say it was definitely worth it. I believe the bar is run by an Austrailian gentlemen? Either way, there was no language problems as they had english menus and spoke english, and I ordered a local Craft Beer (a Porter - yay dark beer!), along with a burger, fries, and a peanut butter shake. I know I was very hungry, but the food definitely hit the spot - it was our first real food outside of the convenience store chicken and snacks.


Sorry for not taking a picture before the first bite...

After dinner we returned back to our hotel, cashed in our free drink certificates, and then went to bed. While I enjoyed Kyoto, I felt like Osaka was a little bit more for me, and was looking forward to spending a little time here on the next day.


Didn't want the last picture to be of a partially eaten hamburger, so here's one of the Moxy lobby and the Super Mario Pinball Machine